Analysis of The Going of the Battery Wives. (Lament)
Thomas Hardy 1840 (Stinsford) – 1928 (Dorchester, Dorset)
O it was sad enough, weak enough, mad enough -
Light in their loving as soldiers can be -
First to risk choosing them, leave alone losing them
Now, in far battle, beyond the South Sea! . . .
- Rain came down drenchingly; but we unblenchingly
Trudged on beside them through mirk and through mire,
They stepping steadily--only too readily! -
Scarce as if stepping brought parting-time nigher.
Great guns were gleaming there, living things seeming there,
Cloaked in their tar-cloths, upmouthed to the night;
Wheels wet and yellow from axle to felloe,
Throats blank of sound, but prophetic to sight.
Gas-glimmers drearily, blearily, eerily
Lit our pale faces outstretched for one kiss,
While we stood prest to them, with a last quest to them
Not to court perils that honour could miss.
Sharp were those sighs of ours, blinded these eyes of ours,
When at last moved away under the arch
All we loved. Aid for them each woman prayed for them,
Treading back slowly the track of their march.
Someone said: "Nevermore will they come: evermore
Are they now lost to us." O it was wrong!
Though may be hard their ways, some Hand will guard their ways,
Bear them through safely, in brief time or long.
- Yet, voices haunting us, daunting us, taunting us,
Hint in the night-time when life beats are low
Other and graver things . . . Hold we to braver things,
Wait we, in trust, what Time's fulness shall show.
Scheme | XABA CDAD XECE AFBF XGBG XHXH XCXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 111101101101 1011011011 111101101101 1011001011 1111111 1101111011 110100101100 1111011011 110101101101 101111101 1101011011 1111101011 11011100 11011001111 111111101111 111101111 10111101011110 1111011001 111111110111 1011001111 111011110 1111111111 111111111111 1111001111 110101101101 1001111111 100101111101 110111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,428 |
Words | 253 |
Sentences | 18 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 39 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 155 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 36 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:15 min read
- 93 Views
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"The Going of the Battery Wives. (Lament)" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 1 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/36514/the-going-of-the-battery-wives.-%28lament%29>.
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